{"id":28896,"date":"2021-03-04T14:10:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T19:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28896"},"modified":"2021-03-04T14:10:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T19:10:32","slug":"aurora-resident-dean-wins-dr-robert-jackson-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-resident-dean-wins-dr-robert-jackson-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora resident Dean wins Dr. Robert Jackson Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alan Dean moved to Canada from Birkenhead, England, in 1965. He sought after work. A new life. He even worked for the Federal government at one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He came to Aurora with a love for sport. Soccer was his passion. He joined the Aurora Soccer Club and eventually became president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his thirties and giving back to a community he was still learning about, Dean broke his leg in practice. It wasn\u2019t an ordinary break. An infection had developed in less than 24 hours and he was brought to Toronto General Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frightened and nervous, Dr. Hamilton-Hall met with Dean. Everyone cleared off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said to me, I\u2019m going to try and save your leg. I\u2019m going to take your leg off. The chances of survival were 50\/50,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a difficult and traumatic time. When I got out, I was grateful to be alive and get back to my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He rehabbed at West Park Healthcare Centre with other amputees and a man named Robert Jackson entered the seminar. He proposed the idea of sports for those with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was completely blown away. Right after that, he handed a registration form for the Ontario Games in London, which was in 1976. I went there and participated and did all right. I was selected for the Ontario team and at the Canadian championships I won six medals,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same year, it was the Toronto Olympiad. It was a major event for the city and one for the history books of Parasport in the country. Dean was the technical advisor in this event. At the time, the only organization that represented people with disabilities was the Canadian Wheelchair Sport Organization. It was founded by Dr. Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He idolized Jackson and everything he had built. From an orthopedic surgeon, to one of the most influential human beings in disabled sport, Jackson left a life-long legacy behind him and an award in his honour was named for all of his efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An award that Dean today holds high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Dean was awarded the Dr. Robert Jackson Award on February 18 during The Power Within\u2019s first ever online event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean received the award from Jackson\u2019s daughter Johannah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was an inspiration to me and to many others involved in sport. That\u2019s why this is so significant to me,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I think back on getting this award, what happened to me to be able to overcome it \u2013 it was a quite a challenge \u2013 believe me I felt really good. It\u2019s quite an honour for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean, became a para-athlete and competed for Canada. He participated in table tennis, javelin and multiple other sports in the process across numerous competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada being number one and the year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst the competition, Dean was one of the founding members of the Ontario Amputee Sports Associations and the Canadian Sports Associations. A large group of members got together to present the ideas and classifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1986, Dean was on the Canadian staff at the World Championships in Sweden and helped introduce the new system for classification \u2013 there were nine classes for wheelchair alone. It was quite the milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was heavily involved with disabled sports and pre-COVID-19, he attended seminars at West Park Healthcare Centre to aid amputees through their trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Jackson\u2019s passing in 2010, Dean worked directly with the doctor, writing some of his reports and seeing him operate on Toronto Argonauts players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of Jackson, the Canadian Federation of Sports Organizations was born in 1981, the Canadian Paralympic Committee was introduced in 1993, and Jackson was the Chief of Surgery in Toronto, according to heritagetrust.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2005, Jackson was awarded the Paralympic Order for his accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Dean, he loved volunteering. He volunteered with the Aurora Soccer Club, he volunteered for numerous entities for disabled sports, let alone competed. When he came out of the hospital on crutches after his leg was amputated, he had no idea what journey he was about to embark on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making an impact is something he is very thankful for. It\u2019s why he was inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Canadians Disability Hall of Fame in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Belardi<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Dean moved to Canada from Birkenhead, England, in 1965. He sought after work. A new life. He even worked for the Federal government at one point. He came to Aurora with a love for sport. Soccer was his passion. He joined the Aurora Soccer Club and eventually became president. In his thirties and giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-03-04-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7w4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-04 18:06:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}